Bitcoins, Cryptos, And Other Trends For 2018

I witnessed the most egregious of events yesterday, during night Thai classes. Standing at the doorway to the classroom, a Chinese girl, known for her bright and animated personality, said something in a rather jestful way to the Korean gent sitting in front of me. Up until that point, I understood that the two were close friends, as they would often come and go together and converse in a mix of Chinese and Korean. She had said something to him in Korean of which I understood could have been interpreted as rude, but who was I to judge since they were friends and were always joking around anyway.

Suddenly and without warning, the Korean guy stood up, marched over to her at the doorway and bitched slapped her across the face, hard, with full force and vengeance. It was unreal, particularly due to the fact he was about twice her size, and appeared more like a parent disciplining a child rather than 2 adults fighting. Alarmed, others in the room rushed in to intervene. She quickly responded in kind, splashing hot milk into his face and all over his person. The fight continued on for a good 5 minutes, at which point I got up off my seat, observed the two as well as many others exhausted and covered in milk, and promptly left the building thereafter.

I figured this would be the perfect story to preface discussing bitcoin.

Bitcoin has been tanking hard the past week, down from $20,000 to sub $14,000; a damn near 30% drop. This is no reason to fret, however, as moves like this are completely normal for assets that are destined to go up in perpetuity. If I was in BTC I would care, but I am merely a spectator, on the sidelines cheering while learning about new applications for the blockchain. On a more serious note, I am actually considering buying some BTC here, since I will use it to exchange to other cryptocurrencies anyways. The beginning of Bitcoin futures trading have allowed shorts to flood the market, and the more shorts there are, the more fuel to push prices higher. For that reason alone, I believe we still go much higher from here.

More importantly, the divergence between ETH and BTC has been rather curious, and may be signaling a slight paradigm shift to ETH-based blockchains. The main difference between the two are that Bitcoins blockchains are primarily used for monetary transactions, whereas ETH blockchains are the preferred choice for most other applications. Perhaps the focus has shifted from building blockchain solutions in finance to elsewhere? Interesting nevertheless.

There are two clear prevailing market trends that look like they will continue onward into 2018, strong and unabated. The first one being AI & ML, the second and more significant being the blockchain and DLTs. Buy a stock with either one of these buzzwords and it will catch a bid. On the periphery, social media, software companies specializing in CRM, and fintech companies will also rise in tandem as the markets assume they implement AI algorithms, are on the blockchain, or both.

2 companies on my radar that are in both spaces are UEPS and GSUM. The first is a fintech company operating out of South Africa and Korea, and the latter is a CRM company in China involved in AI and the blockchain. They both have all the right buzzwords and I expect them to trade much higher, and quickly. I own GSUM at an average price of $9.37.

In the crypto space, I am interested in owning both MCO and ADA, and will be executing those trades shortly. I am buying MCO in preparation for my Monaco card that will require MCOs anyway, and I expect a rush to own MCO currency shortly thereafter as usage of the card proliferates. ADA is my lotto ticket for next year.

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A travelling entrepreneur documenting lessons and challenges learned on the journey. My time is split between Asia and North America, and am always on the lookout for opportunities. I offer a different perspective on business in Asia.